User blog:El Tea Couch/Status Report - Week of 13 October 2014
This week we'll talk about infected AI, and our plans for the next few months regarding these systems. Looking forward towards our October stable branch update (0.50) and on-wards to the November update we plan on slowly implementing the next iteration of A.I. for the infected into our experimental and later stable branches. The intent with this iteration is focused on several key points for gameplay: Stealth as a viable method of tactics vs infected A.I. Vastly reduced range-of-vision Smaller corner to corner cone of vision Infected hearing ability refactored to compliment stealth as viable gameplay method The impact of the intended new behavior extends past the obvious gameplay areas and into server performance and navmesh compliance. As the gameplay programming team begins the process of implementing this new system into DayZ, so will begin the process of removing the legacy A.I. system used prior. Starting fresh with this new system should reduce the load on the DayZ server process and allow us to begin experimenting with new methods of distributing the infected, as well as increasing the amount of infected spawned per server instance. As well, the changes in A.I. navigation in complex scenarios should have a strong positive impact on the positioning of infected A.I. when players attempt to trap/ditch/elude them in and around structures and terrain features. On the service side, the architecture has been completed to support and rent private shards of the central hive. We have updated our DayZ server rules for the public hive to reflect the differences between public hive and private shard servers - both of these rule sets can be viewed here: Public Hive - Server Rules Private Shard - Server Rules Once our partner game server providers have completed the final touches on supporting the rental of these new server types in each of their systems, you will begin to see private shard servers show up in the in game server browser.''- Brian Hicks / Producer'' Chris / Lead Artist “'Tech:' To follow on from last time, I received word that the bug preventing shadows from being cast onto our prototype bushrag was fixed so we will begin polishing it and generating any other assets needed for its crafting. The first women’s clothing item is done: 3/4 length pants. It will be added in the no-so distant future, along with women’s shorts and a sweater. The prison uniform, which was paused pending a few high priority tasks, is WIP again. We will have to pause the creation of new zombie types temporarily to work on some tweaks to the skeleton, which were asked for by the programming and animation team, related to new zombie AI/animation triggers. The team in Bratislava is working on various crafted items from leather which I hope will be interesting to people who like to play in more of a PvE style. Weapons: Work continues on the AKS-74U and AK-74. I decided with Peter that we will keep the AK101 in the game for now and visually distinguish it by the black furniture and dark-plum magazine. By contrast, the AK74 will be given wood furniture and a brown magazine. The AUG needs a bit more time but I can tell you we have pretty big plans for it. We're exploring the idea of converting your AUG from carbine with the AUG built-in optic to an HBAR with an ACOG if you find the right parts. We'll keep you appraised of the latest developments. Character: Work continues on women's clothing and new zombie types - in particular, a farmer zombie. He's a little pudgy but can still pack a punch." Peter / Lead Designer "We’ve got a lot of things in the pipe right now. We’ve taken a look at some of the remaining issues with struggling from restrains and burlap sack. We’ve fixed them and they look good to go. No more simple holding of the key to set you free from your restrains. No more reconnecting with burlap sack on head with ability to see through it. We will also add the possibility to restrain survivors with rope, duct tape and even wire, which was added recently for use with snare trap. We are also looking at how to implement muting of the player when he will be wearing duct tape over his mouth. As well duct tape will have some usage for repairing stuff, unfortunately it's not visualized but we will research what we can do to deliver also some visual feedback to patched items. Apart from that we fixed plenty of smaller issues down the road and added some touches like proper animations for some actions. A good amount of new feature work is in progress - first working iterations of horticulture and barricading are ready and will be in the game in upcoming experimental version available for you to try out and meanwhile we will iterate and build upon them further. Right now there is tomato plant that may be cultivated and harvested for its crop, and lock pick which can be used to locking and unlocking doors of structures. Interesting things are happening right now. The gameplay programming team has started work on several key issues for their area - new controls and new inventory. Both of them will take a longer time to implement but it will be worth the time and effort invested to their implementation. Both features are very vital for the game and make it a lot more fluent. I will talk about them in little more detail next time. For now we have managed to make first prototype of controls working which allowed us such things like charged melee attacks and also possibility to use melee attacks with firearms. Also we are working on new sensors for AI, so prepare yourself for proper AI of zombies and animals in the future. We all know that stealth approach was one of the most crucial mechanic in the mod and personally I really missing it and I'm looking forward to some tension and raised heartbeat while I will sneak behind their backs trying to be as quiet as possible." Standup Notes for the week of 13 October 2014 (Note: Standup notes are not a change log - they are a quick high level look at tasks the teams worked on throughout this week) Art *Multiple crafted leather items *Women's shorts, sweater. *Polishing bush rag and 3D camo for weapons *Double pistol grip MP133 *Prison Uniform *Steyr AUG *Zombie skeleton tweaks *New Signage for buildings Animation *Player Unarmed Sprint polishing *Player animation graph bugfixing *Zombie hits processing *Wring clothes animation in progress *Restrained struggle animation changes Design *Bugfixing *Configs and scripts for new items (small stone, seeds, wire, radio) *Patching items with duct tape *Doors damage *Locking doors *Temperature and wetness tweaks *Added loot to new structures *Drinking from both wells behave the same *Cannot use object/surface actions while throwing *Advanced melee *Horticulture *Barricading *Animal and zombie AI *Construction *Controls *Inventory Programming *Critical inventory fixes *Unintenional weapon switching *New game controls *Server performance issues *Gameplay statistics *Loot distribution improvements *Door states persistency References http://dayz.com/blog/status-report-week-of-13-oct-14 [[User:El Tea Couch|''El Tea Couch]] [[User talk:El Tea Couch|Talk'']] 20:15, October 17, 2014 (UTC) Category:Blog posts